From the St. Louis Beacon
…Voters in one of the county’s largest communities, Kirkwood, also strongly backed a smoking ban, which go into effect next summer. Debra Hacke Cotten, a spokeswoman for the group Healthy Air for Kirkwood, said, “We are very excited. It was a very decisive victory. Obviously it was what the people of Kirkwood wanted.”
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
…Voters in St. Louis County have overwhelmingly approved a ban on smoking in restaurants and most other indoor businesses. The vote means that smoke-free legislation approved by St. Louis aldermen — which was contingent on a similar proposal passing in the county — will also become law.
Both the county and city prohibitions will not go into effect until January 2011. And both measures contain plenty of exceptions.
In the county, “drinking establishments,” defined as bars who make a quarter or less of their sales from food, can still allow smoking. In the city, “small bars,” those with no more than 2,000 square feet of service space, will have five extra years to comply.
Casinos floors in St. Louis city and county will also be exempt.
The margin of victory leaves little room for interpretation. Though turnout was relatively light- about 20 percent — the smoking ban won with 65 percent of the vote.
remember, only 20% X 65% = 13% of voters actually approved this ban,,,and those are likely not the ones who patronized smoking venues anyway.
the other 35% ( who voted against the ban) will stay home more, and the owners will end up footing the bill, and the workers who had little say in all this, will suffer the income loss.
I hope smoke-free st louis city will push for a bill to rebate collected sales tax to offset lost revenue…and preserve the income of those workers.
the light turn out means 80% of voters did not care enough about the ban one way, or another, to even go to the polls.
no one else is commenting?
ho hum! I guess not many people really care enough about smoking bans, or this site would be more active.